Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Bart Coenders
One of the unhappy side effects of the housing market collapse/credit crisis is that many innocent people have to suffer, too. For one, your house is prob...
I woke up this morning to a National Public Radio story about the ongoing mortgage crisis, especially those "subprime" borrowers who are in danger of foreclosure. On the radio I could hear p...
Via Lifehacker, a really interesting post from Millionaire Mommy Next Door on how ditching home ownership in favor of renting improved both her financial life and her feeling of freedom. You could tak...
Back in May, I covered American Express's new program, in which it lets cardholders pay their mortgages with a credit card. But it was full of downsides, as you can only do it if you pay $395 as p...
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Housing
by Justin McHenry on September 26, 2007
Back in May I brought up Bank of America's No-Fee Mortgage offering, which claims no loan origination fees, or closing fees and no PMI for those with less than 20% down payments. I didn't know...
Major banks generally have a reputation for working hard to screw you in the fine print, whether it's mortgages, credit cards or what have you. But so far I haven't been able to find a catch w...
As more and more of the tax money that cities receive comes from property taxes, a strange occurrence has taken place. People are reveling in the upswings in value in their homes from the recent hot r...
Alaska has no state sales tax and no state income tax. But that's only the beginning...
I came across this article today that shows Anchorage to be the cheapest major American city to live in, at...
These two to the left look happy now, but just wait until that house sits on the market for 8 months and they're carrying two Mortgages because they already bought a new place.
That's the to...
If you've ever house hunted, you probably noticed a wide variance in the quality of the homes available at similar price points. Oftentimes it's not the intrinsic quality that is so much diffe...
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Housing
by Justin McHenry on September 20, 2006
I got stupid and bought some homebuilder stocks a little while back. Looks like I'm going to have to hold on to those for a few years if I ever want my money back.
But my loss is your gain--home...
Although her grass definitely needs a cutting, this woman appears happy with her home. But, is she happy because it's a great home, or happy because she knows its value is rising and one day she&#...
To your left is a photo of me during a recent do-it-yourself project. I believe I was building a shed or something that required me to saw some wood.
Ah, who am I kidding? That's not me--it's...
J.D. at Get Rich Slowly is discussing the merits of making extra payments toward your mortgage principal. He rightly acknowledges that even the experts seem to disagree on whether it's the right f...
The Christian Science Monitor had an article yesterday about the pros and cons of putting extra money toward paying off your mortgage versus investing it. The financial experts they talked to basicall...
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Housing
by on January 19, 2006
Easy access to money can sometimes make you feel like you know how it all works together in your various transactions. In the area of home loans I think this may come back and bite a lot of people.
...
Read more of Be Cautious of Easy Mortgages
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Housing
by on January 18, 2006
Forbes reported today that the UK housing market ended 2005 on a much better note than it had started the years at. In the month of December prices rose for the second straight month after 15 months ...
Read more of Is UK Housing Market about to take off?
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Housing
by on January 17, 2006
According to this commentator the primary cause of the housing bubble is the huge debt that America is carrying.
"Rising real estate prices have created the illusion that homeowners are now wea...
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Housing
by andy on June 24, 2005
I've kept quiet on housing of late because, frankly, I got tired beating that drum. How much anecdotal evidence of a mania can one really stomach without becoming tone deaf? But I'm ready to d...
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Housing
by andy on June 22, 2005
In every area of our lives we flock to those producers that offer the latest and greatest. In fact, we demand it. The iPod and Dyson vacuums come to mind. As a society we demand innovation.
The mor...
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Housing
by andy on June 3, 2005
With mortgage rates about to hit lows not seen in over a year, it may be a good time to think about refinancing.
Here's a handy calculator to help you in your decision making.
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Housing
by andy on June 1, 2005
It's always interesting to see what some "seasoned" players have to say. Here's a fellow who's been there, done that for quite some time.
Today people are certain real estate ...
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Housing
by andy on May 19, 2005
My brother is a mortgage banker so I frequently discuss housing with him to get a bird's eye view of what's going on. A year or two ago I was tossing ideas around to spur some debate. One in...
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Housing
by andy on May 18, 2005
Bill Gross is the high profile bond fund manager at Pimco. He writes a monthly letter that is posted to the Pimco site. If you don't like to get your hands dirty don't bother. But if you are i...
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Housing
by andy on May 3, 2005
Barry Ritholtz has a piece on housing that ends with a reference to a Wall Street Jounal article dealing with Governor Kohn's speech last week. We discussed this speech in an earlier post. While...
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Housing
by andy on May 2, 2005
Not again Warren!
Loud were the cries that Mr. Buffett just didn't get what was happening in the late 1990s into 2000. He was out of touch with technology because it was "different this ti...
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Housing
by andy on April 18, 2005
The Federal Reserve Board doesn't think one can identify bubbles in realtime. Thus, the housing market today is as rational as 5, 15 or 35 years ago according to this widely praised brain trust.
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